


He Who Fights Monsters

by Celesma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, F/M, Guilty Dean, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Monsters are people too, Purgatory, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:17:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesma/pseuds/Celesma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean encounters a familiar face in Purgatory. Pre-S08 alternate reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Who Fights Monsters

It is his third week trapped in Purgatory, and two of them had been spent traveling with the kitsune. Dean slashes through the jagged tree limbs with his machete to clear a path for Amy, while the latter takes advantage of her keen vision to scan the trees and vegetation for any sign of monsters, her eyes glowing amber in the moonless dark. The forest looms heavy and malevolent around them, as it always has. Dean travels ahead of Amy, and even though her claws are fully extended, he has long since ceased worrying about being stabbed in the back.

It was strange, at first, traveling with someone you'd stuck with a knife and left for dead a year ago. The initial meeting in the afterlife had been even stranger. He had been heavily surrounded by a number of those gorilla-wolf things ( _it must be Tuesday,_ he thought) and all at once there'd been a blur of motion and a figure crashing through the trees with strange, animal-like grace. At first he thought it was Cas – Cas, who'd disappeared within the first five minutes of getting zapped here – but that illusion was promptly corrected when he saw the fur and tail and claws. And then, the face.

She made impressively short work of the creatures, targeting their skulls and spilling brain matter everywhere. She seized a handful of the gray tissue and ate, then turned to face him, a _femme fatale_ in a blood-spattered coat and sweater. Her fox-like eyes widened in recognition, and before he could say boo she was on him, screaming _You son of a bitch you killed my son my only son I'll murder you –  
_

He would've been dead, too, if he hadn't managed to bellow back _Jacob is fine he's with family would you let me **explain?**_ And she reared back on her hindquarters, her fox's tail coiled with tense energy, the maternal hope in her face staying her hand. He explained how the whole Kill Bill scenario had gone down, and it tightened once more with rage.

"You _orphaned_ him. He was just a child!"

"He was a monster."

" _You're_ a monster," she spat back.

"You're probably right."

"What would you have done, if he'd said he had nowhere to go? Would you have killed him?"

Dean's eyes turned downward and he said he didn't know. There was more angry bickering and arguing, but she seemed content to believe him that Jacob was alive. Bizarrely, she didn't seem concerned about the circumstances behind her own death, and he wasn't stupid enough to bring it up. They had just agreed to go their separate ways when more of the fucking gorilla-wolves appeared, forcing them to fight in tandem. He had to credit the kitsune for the amount of fight in her, as she took down most of the newcomers without tiring. When it was over Dean turned to her, panting, and proposed an uneasy truce, seeing as they'd both be done for if they traveled alone long enough. Wearily and with obvious reluctance, she agreed.

Things had been that simple, and yet impossibly complicated. He kept watching her out of the corner of his eye as they started trudging onward – which direction they took didn't seem to matter, as Amy informed him there was no way out of the forest; Purgatory was apparently a 24/7 Nat Geo special – and kept one hand poised always at his side, ready to seize the machete if need be. She looked at him, almost amused, and asked what exactly he planned on doing here.

"I'm looking for my friend. And then he and I are getting the hell out of here," he said, sounding more confident than he felt.

"Does your friend have a name?"

"Yeah. It's Cas."

"How did you get separated?"

_He ran out on me,_ Dean almost said. _And I'm damn scared, because he wasn't in his right mind when he did it._ Instead: "We were attacked. I lost him in the chaos."

"Okay," she said, not sounding terribly convinced. "And how do you plan to get out of here?"

"I'll cross that bridge when I come to it," he growled, and the two of them weaved through the leaves and dirt in silence for the rest of the day, which was fine by him. He had no intention of getting schmoozy with a monster. The menacing shadows lengthened and then night finally fell, cloaking them like a black cloud. Dean chopped wood for a fire and Amy got it started, coaxing a flame from a bundle of sticks with the rapid motion of her claws. They sat on opposite sides and an uncomfortable silence ensued, broken only by Dean clearing his throat.

"Look, before we take this little alliance any further, I think we should lay down a couple of ground rules."

"Fine."

"For starters, I think it's best if neither of us turns into a couple of Chatty Cathys while we're together. You clearly hate my guts, and I can't say you're my favorite person either. Eventually one of us will say something that'll piss the other one off and there'll be a fight."

"You really think I'm that violent," she scoffed. "When you threatened to kill my boy."

"I'm just taking precautions," he said. "The second rule is that we'll take turns keeping a lookout through the night. The fire is sure to attract a few monsters in this darkness, and we need to be ready when they come."

"How do you know I won't slit your throat when it's my turn to watch?" She said this in a tone that was more academic than vitriolic, but Dean bristled anyway.

"And you just told me you weren't violent," he countered, and she fell silent. "Anyway, I'm a light sleeper. I'll take the first watch." He pulled the machete free by a few inches, making sure she could see it clearly in the orange glow of the fire. "And don't get any stupid ideas," he added darkly.

She glared at him. "Wasn't planning on it."

And now here he is, three weeks into Purgatory, and things haven't been looking any better – not on the "looking for Cas" front _or_ the "getting the hell out of here" front. Sure, Amy's useful, skilled in hunting and collecting fruit and grasshoppers (Dean would greatly prefer a cheeseburger but he isn't picky), and occasionally turning gorilla-wolves into steaks. But so far they haven't run into anything humanoid, anything that could give them information about where Cas is. True to their agreement, neither of them make small talk, but the tension between them remains as thick as Dean's aforesaid dream burger.

At length a shaft of moonlight pierces the canopy of leaves above them, and Dean sees Amy hurrying in front of him. He stops, knowing well enough to heed her whenever she does something out of the ordinary – although _damn_ if the sight of her tail swishing back and forth isn't distracting. Amy turns to him and points out the dead body lying in their path.

"Looks like a chupacabra," she says. "That's good. It's humanoid enough that its glands are probably more nourishing than anything else I've found here."

Dean gapes at the thing's fly-infested carcass. "Those things are real?" he says, and she rolls her eyes, before kneeling in front of the body and perforating its skull with the tip of one claw. Dean shudders at the grim reminder that, no matter how human Amy may _look_ , she's still a thing to be hunted.

Amy frees the gland and begins to eat. "If you don't like it, you can always turn around," she says in response to Dean's look of disgust, her tone one of irritated hurt. Dean's mouth snaps closed and he looks away.

Still, he can't seem to help himself. "So this is you in your natural habitat, huh?" he says after a moment. "I mean, you seem pretty comfortable eating monster brains and all. And your hunting skills? Top-notch."

He doesn't know why he's baiting her like this, but it works. "And _you_ seem abnormally skilled with that machete," Amy responds peevishly.

"Don't I know it."

She turns to him and her eyes are stormier than usual. "You really believe in your own crap, don't you? _Once a monster, always a monster,_ am I right?"

"It's been true so far," he says, and then he flinches, remembering Cas. _Bow down and profess your love unto me, or I shall destroy you._

She mistakes the flinch for a wince of disgust. "You really don't believe people can change?"

"But you _are_ killing again," he points out, and that silences her. "Monsters kill. That's just their nature. If it makes you feel better, I don't exclude myself from that definition."

"It doesn't," she says, and her tone is sad now. She pities him. Dean thinks that she's probably right to.

* * *

His fourth week in Purgatory (a year now for Amy, he'd learned, proving that time moved the same here as it did back in the normal world), he asks her about her name.

"Amy Pond? That's a Doctor Who thing. That can't be your real name, can it?"

"My mom had us change our identities every time we moved. Half the time she didn't call me by it, though. I never knew what my birth name was, and I was too afraid to ask." She shrugs, like she's unconcerned. "I'm a sci-fi fan, so when she let me pick out my own name for once, Amy Pond was what I went with."

"Science fiction, huh? You ever read _The Time Machine_? That was one of my favorite books."

It was weird, being this friendly with a monster, but he's been so starved for interaction that doesn't involve the other party trying to kill him that it's starting to not matter to him anymore. She hasn't said anything about their agreement, so she must be sharing the same sentiments. Anyway, he figures that neither of them are going to survive long enough to feel stupid about it later. As long as he avoids touching on the subject of how he killed her, it should be all right.

"I read it," she says in reply to his question, her voice still and small, enough that Dean turns to look back at her. "Sam lent me a copy of it, actually."

Dean's face turns stony and he resumes their trek. Goddammit, one question in and he was already regretting this.

Hesitantly, as if she were treading on the conversational equivalent of a landmine, she asks: "How... how is Sam?"

"Sam? He's... fine." Lame, but truthful. He hopes. When Dick had exploded (oh god that sounded wrong), there'd still been a small army of Levis roaming the building; and while he's always had faith in his brother's ability to kick ass and take names, he can't know for sure whether he made it out. But he pushes it out of his mind, can't even entertain the thought. His little brother _must_ be alive, drawing up plans to rescue Dean.

She speaks again and it's like she can read his thoughts. "Do you think he's looking for you?"

"Yeah. I think he is. Probably pawing through every spellbook he can find as we speak."

"Do you think he'll succeed?"

"I don't know." _Cas and Crowley searched for a year and even **they** couldn't find the place._ And then: _Goddammit. We have **got** to find Cas._

"Does Sam know that I'm dead?"

The question pulls him up short, but he recovers quickly enough. "Yeah," he says. "He knows. He was pissed for a while, but... you know. He got over it."

"Oh." For the first Amy seems directly dismayed by her death. She stares at her shoes while they walk. "So he was just... okay with it."

"I guess you could put it that way." Dean inwardly cringes at how douchey he sounds, at the pain in her voice. And really, she's _entitled_ to it. To find out your first flame – likely someone you still cared about – was ultimately indifferent to whether you lived or died had to be a terrible blow. Dean sympathized, without meaning to.

After all, how many times had his own father made him feel that way?

For long moments he mentally vacillates between two courses of action. Then deciding that _dammit, a lady monster is still a lady,_ he says, "Look, it's just the nature of the business. Hunters can't let personal feelings get in the way of a case. Sam's always had trouble with that."

"We were freaks together," she says with a wistful air. Dean blinks at her.

"What?"

"Sam and me. That's how we connected. He was the bookish bully-magnet, and I was the girl daydreaming about being one of the Doctor's Companions instead of paying attention in class. And we were both _always_ the new kid, which sucked." She pauses. "He said he felt like a freak. I told him that made him cool. When it turned out we were supposed to kill each other, we just kind of decided – screw that noise. You know?"

"So it was a _Fox and the Hound_ kind of deal?" Appropriate, considering the kind of creature she was.

"Yeah." And she tells him, from beginning to end, about her first and only date with Sam Winchester. Dean is humbled, surprised, and amused by the end of it: there'd been plenty of details Sam hadn't had time to go into upon recounting it to him (such as how he beat up those punks with his so-called "Bruce Lee" skills, or talked about how shitty their dad made him feel). He sobers when she describes how she saved Sam's life.

"I guess I have to thank you, then."

"For killing my mother? I don't want thanks for that."

"Well you're getting it whether you like it or not, because Sam wouldn't be here today if you hadn't. But also... for showing Sammy that he wasn't alone." For the first time he smiles at her. It feels good. "That means a lot to me."

For a while she's very, very quiet. Then:

"You're welcome."

* * *

His fifth week in Purgatory, he's a disgusting mess. Irregular bathing will do that to a guy. Dean is on watch for a few hours while Amy sleeps, curled up by the campfire with her tail tucked against her stomach. He'd never admit it, but it makes for a cute image. Satisfied that they're not going to be attacked in the night, Dean decides to tackle his hygiene problem in private. Fortunately, the swampy area that they stumbled upon that morning wasn't cold and was home to an exceptionally clean-looking lake. He picks his way over mossy vines and piles of half-rotted wood towards where the lake is situated, a reasonable distance away from the fire, but not so far that he can't hear something approaching.

The sky above is black and starless, illuminated only by a moon painted in sickly orange shades, lending a claustrophobic feel to the proceedings. Dean strips off all of his clothes, discards his bag of survival gear. He treads lightly into the water, up to his waist. The feel of it is delicious on his soiled, parched skin, and he can't suppress a little groan of pleasure. Even without being privileged with soap, he does his best to clean himself thoroughly. After a quarter of an hour he reluctantly drags himself out of this comparative oasis, knowing he can't afford to let his guard down for long.

His fears seem to be confirmed when he hears a noise, and he makes a grab for the machete. But it's just Amy's voice.

"H-hey. Are you there? Um, I thought I heard something. It might be your angel? It sounded like flapping wings – "

She stops when she sees him, the glowing golden eyes widening with muted shock. He can make out her form, silhouetted against the moon's pale rays; and those precious minutes spent in the lake must have conferred a baptism of the imagination on him, because he's seeing her now in a new, entirely different light. The Sam-esque jacket she wraps around herself is filthy, lends her a boxy appearance, and yet she still presents to him as something delicate and lovely. The curve of her hip, visible beneath the jacket's folds, is shapely, inviting, accented by the smoothly furred tail that clings to it. His eyes naturally taper up to her face, framed by hair that – dirty and matted as it may be – nevertheless bears the soft color of honey. Later Dean will think about this moment and regard himself with confused revulsion, but right now he's entranced.

Because even with the tail and the eyes, he can tell he's looking at no monster: just the girl next door. He feels his mind creeping up to the border of some new and terrible revelation. _From the very beginning, she could have killed me. But she chose to die in that motel room._

And then, because something about the situation seems to demand it – whether it's God's dick sense of humor, his own nakedness, or the new, appealing sight before him – he becomes aware of his arousal, as hard and unapologetic as the cool night breeze caressing it is soft. And he wakes up. Whirling around, covering his ass like he's in a shitty romantic comedy, Dean races back into the lake, wading until the water is up to his neck. His face burns while his erection screams.

Amy calls out behind him, insisting that she didn't see anything, but he knows _that's_ a lie. He prays to Cas, God, and all the Heavenly Host that something happens in the next five seconds to make Amy forget about all of this.

And something does, sort of, as a shadow the size of five Impalas put together suddenly descends, blots out all remaining light. "Oh, my God," Amy says. "Is that – "

"A dragon," Dean finishes grimly. Son of a _bitch._

* * *

His sixth week in Purgatory, he's settled into an easy companionship with Amy. The change was so slow and imperceptible that for a while he didn't even realize there _was_ a change. The two of them work in near-perfect sync now, like a finely tuned machine, hunting and gathering and even creating maps of the area. _She'd make a hell of a hunter,_ he thinks, but she probably wouldn't regard that as a compliment. Tonight Dean listens as Amy regales him with stories about Jacob by the fire. It's been another long, fruitless day and they're both exhausted, but the sound of her voice is pleasant and relaxing  _–_ all the more so because of how obviously in love with the kid she is. Dean laughs at the story of how Jacob once tried to crawl into a rabbit burrow and got stuck halfway ("Like Winnie the Pooh," Amy says with a girlish giggle that makes him think of the lake), then asks something he's been wondering for a while.

"Where's his dad, anyway? He run out on you or something?" _Because of what you are,_ he doesn't add.

She's uncannily tuned to his thoughts, and she shakes her head on both counts. "No. Jacob was conceived by rape."

Dean stares at her and his heart turns to hoarfrost, constricting his blood vessels into icy splinters. Just the word is enough to trigger memories of his own violation in hell, but all of his shock and concern is reserved for her.

His voice breaks. "I'm sorry."

Amy shakes her head again, strangely dispassionate. "Don't be. It was a long time ago. I was at a co-worker's house and he spiked my drink. I actually woke up in the middle of it and  _–_ " She stops and stares into the fire, the burnished light of the flames dancing beautifully on her face, like watercolors on a blank canvas. Dean waits.

A full minute goes by, and she says: "I didn't kill him, if that's what you're wondering. But I _did_ frighten him, enough that he turned himself in to the cops."

Dean's lips quirk upward in a humorless smile. "Wouldn't have blamed you if you did kill him."

"I was going to have an abortion. I didn't feel like I was ready for a child, much less a child that wasn't entirely human. But then, when they had me on the table, I just... couldn't. I couldn't do it." Her eyes slide to Dean, eerily placid. "My mother was horrible and abusive, I realize that now. I wanted to bring something good out of what happened to me  _–_ to give my child the chance of a normal life, the one she never gave me. And so, when Jacob was dying, I... I fell apart."

It is Dean's turn to stare into the fire, as Amy falls silent again. When next she speaks, her voice has a lifeless quality that Dean recognizes at once. _Like when I was telling Sam about hell. Oh, God. Amy._

"I know you're wondering why I never defended myself, back at the motel room, or why I'm not interested in blaming you for what happened. It's because I let Jacob down. I set a terrible example for him. I taught him that it's okay to take what you want from other people  _–_ even their lives, if it benefits you. And even when I was a kid, my mom  _–_ I didn't stop my mom from killing people. I just cowered and took what she gave me, like a pathetic dog. I didn't want to die, but I knew I deserved it. I'm no better than her." And now she _does_ begin to evince emotion, her brown-gray eyes reddening and welling with tears, her head sinking into her hands. Her shoulders shake with silent sobs, and before Dean knows what he's doing he reaches out with one strong arm and pulls her close, falling back on the natural instinct to console, cradling her head between his chin and chest.

"Jesus. Don't say that, Amy. You were just doing what you thought was best under the circumstances. And kids aren't responsible for what their parents do. You can't beat yourself up like this."

Amy continues to cry, her tears a wet and warm balm that soaks through his shirt to his skin. Her body is unbelievably soft in his arms.

"Why did you spare my son, Dean? And why did you let me come with you? I just don't understand."

Dean's jaw tightens. She has never called him by his name before. And he realizes, all at once, that bringing her along had never been about survival. Not really.

He opens his mouth, answers both questions.

"Because everyone deserves a chance."

At length she quiets and closes her eyes, relaxed by the beating of his heart in his chest and his slow breathing. Dean strokes her hair and watches as the fire burns itself down to embers, wondering at the changes she's wrought in him.

* * *

The next morning they set out again, and neither one mentions what happened the night before, preferring instead to focus on the usual routine, as practiced to them now as breathing: wake up, hunt for food (and monsters), map out the area, make camp as the daylight hours run into evening. Lather, rinse, repeat. There's nothing about this day to suggest that things will be any different, but they're soon unpleasantly surprised. Amy, being something of a Purgatory native, is the first to notice that something is off about their surroundings: the minute signs that they're being stalked. With an imperceptible nod to Dean, she falls to all fours and pounces behind a nearby oak, dragging a struggling humanoid creature into view seconds later. Dean's eyes widen with shock  _–_ and with shock, the first vestiges of hope.

"Vampire," he confirms, as Amy persuades the creature to hold still with a flash of her claws. "And from the looks of it, a newborn," he adds, regarding its guttural moans of hunger with pitying disgust. "I can guess why you were following us, buddy."

They get the vamp so it's backed against a tree and can't go running to Daddy, then start asking questions.

"Fuck you," the vamp hisses each time, its eyes rolling in its head  _–_ Dean legitimately can't identify the gender  _–_ and it doesn't take long for the hunter's patience to wear thin. He looks to Amy, exchanging a glance.

"I _know_ you know something, you bloodsucking asshole. Now tell me where the angel is, or this little lady here is going to enjoy your brains with a side of fava beans and a nice chianti."

"Your whore doesn't frighten me."

Bones crunch and the vamp's head rockets backwards, the force of Dean's blow so powerful that only its anchored position against the tree saves it from a premature decapitation.

"Tell me. Where Cas is. _Now._ "

"You want to know where Castiel is, human? Fine. I'll tell you. He's in my guts. Our pack ripped him to shreds. Stupid little thing didn't even fight back. And I'll let you in on a little secret: he was _delicious._ All those brittle feathers and that warm, dying light, like a good strong shot of whis  _–_ "

The machete tears through its neck, burying deep into the oak. The vamp's head slides from its shoulders like an afterthought, an expression of malevolent glee forever pasted on its face.

"Dean," Amy says, but Dean turns away. He takes a huge shuddering breath and doesn't exhale for a long, long time.

* * *

His seventh week in Purgatory, he holds a funeral for Cas. He's denied and denied and denied, _three times you shall deny me Peter said Jesus_ , but now his eyes are finally open. Castiel is gone. He prays to him one last time, thanking him for everything he did and was, then takes a green plastic pawn out of his pocket and carefully covers it in dirt. It's from that board game Cas liked to play back at the psychiatric ward  _–_ the one proclaiming SORRY! in all caps _–_ and for some unfathomable reason the angel had wanted him to have it.

_I'm sorry I was bad, Dean. I let you down._ Fuck, he can even _hear_ the words falling from Cas's lips. Dean stays hunched over on his knees and smashes his fist into the ground.

"He was an angel. He didn't know better. All the lying and the sneaking around and the  _coldness_   _–_ all that shit, he must have learned that from me. And the thing with the Leviathans only happened because he cared, he cared about me _so damn much,_ and I didn't deserve  _–_ " He stops, realizing he's babbling. Amy goes over to him and places a hand on his cheek. It's warm and gentle and he leans into it, even as he tells himself he shouldn't.

She doesn't ask him what he's talking about. She just says, "It's not your fault."

"I keep thinking about the last thing I said to you. Before I ganked  _–_ " He shakes his head at the shitty euphemism. "Before I murdered you. That people and monsters can't change, that we are what we are..."

He can feel Amy's eyes on him, imagine the judgment. But her fingers don't leave his face.

"Well, Castiel, he wasn't human either. But he tried. He fucking _tried._ And even though he let me down, even though he killed so many people, I still... when I saw him again, I knew I didn't want to kill him. And maybe I didn't know it on the surface, but underneath, I _knew_ what I did to you was wrong. And Sammy  _–_ Sam, I don't think he ever really forgave me for it. Sometimes he still looks at me, and I can tell the whole time what he's thinking. _Hypocrite._ He went through the wringer, too  _–_ started the Apocalypse, lost his soul for a while, hurt a bunch of people. And I still forgave him, him and Cas both." He knows he's making absolutely no sense now, but he presses on, helpless to stop himself from unloading his sins, a garbage disposal working in reverse. "I just wanted to find Cas and tell him I'm sorry, sorry for treating him like shit, for making him feel like he had to do the deal with Crowley, let him know there's always  _–_ _always_   _–_ a chance to turn things around."

He stares at the little makeshift grave, wishing so much that Cas might rise from it, the way Cas raised _him_ four years ago. "I think I know why I came here. It's God's way of telling me that I'm fucked up. Unfixable. A monster."

Her fingers glide over his skin with inexpressible tenderness, her touch like the kiss of feathers. She tips his chin up to look at her. She has no way of understanding what he is talking about, but she is still a comfort. Amy is beautiful, so beautiful  _–_ "You talk about forgiveness. It's time to forgive yourself, too. You're not a monster, Dean."

"Amy, I'm sorry."

"I know you are."

For one eternal moment her eyes regard him with a nameless emotion, one that he occasioned to glimpse in the faces of Sam and Castiel whenever they look at him; and he realizes, with surprise beyond measure, that it is love. He reaches out for her, arms as supplicating as a child's, and their lips meet in a gentle, understated crackle of heat. Soon her hair surrounds him like a curtain, her thick tail curling around his body and gently lowering him to the ground. He pulls her down with him and buries his face in the tail's tip, drinking in the animal scent and the delicate, spidery sensations of fur caressing his skin. And then  _–_ suddenly needing more than this gentle touch  _–_ he wraps his knees around her tail, grasps her fur between his fingers and rocks his hips in desperation. He bites the flesh underneath and she moans, before rolling on top of her to cup her face and kiss her more, harder, _deeper,_ his lips and tongue exploring her soft mouth within and without.

They kiss like that for a long time without stopping, and her mouth dries all of his tears.

* * *

His fifth year in Purgatory, he has a family; and Purgatory is no longer Purgatory, exactly. It's comfort, familiarity, _home._ Dean remembers Sam, loves him and misses him, but knows he probably wouldn't come back even if his little brother _did_ find a way to get him out of here. His days of saving the world are over, all of his energies devoted to taking care of the loved ones still within his reach. With Amy and Emma, he has the life that he was forced to give up with Lisa and Ben.

Ironically, they'd found Emma as soon as he had consigned himself  _–_ not without a little bit of relief  _–_ to the idea of spending eternity in this shadowy afterlife. She'd been lost and scared and very, very angry. Dean explained that he knew what she'd been going through, knew that she'd had the choice to behave like a human or a monster before Sam took that away from her. _I believe in you,_ he said. _**We** believe in you,_ Amy amended. Emma had cried and let the only real parents she'd ever known wrap their arms around her in a loving embrace.

Life in these times is not altogether different from _saving people, hunting things._ Dean spends his mornings hunting down Leviathans with Benny the N'Awlins vampirate (how they met and became friends was a story in itself), while Amy educates his Amazonian daughter in preliminaries such as the ABCs (older-looking or no, Emma's still just six years old).

"It's okay, Em," he tells her when she complains, wanting to go hunting in lieu of school. "Everything I really needed to know, I learned in kindergarten."

They hunt things, and make humans of monsters, growing increasingly familiar with every scrap of this wild realm, every tree and rock and river. Dean's favorite part of the day is when they all settle down around the campfire and Dean tells stories about Castiel. (He will never forget Castiel, either. Never.) Later he lies with Amy and wraps his arms around her, keeping her warm even as she warms him, the arch of her back a perfect fit against his stomach. Sometimes she cries for Jacob; sometimes she doesn't. But always, he is there for her.

It's not the apple pie life he envisioned, but then, that had never really worked for him. Here nothing is artificial or factory-made; everything  _–_ _everything_   _–_ is won by blood and sweat and tears, is a means of purifying the soul. Here he can be a warrior, a hunter, a father, a husband (and perhaps even a monster), and never face the contradictions.

He's happy, and so it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this story served a dual purpose: 1) to indulge my Dean/Amy feels, and 2) to vent some steam regarding Amy's treatment in the narrative. For as much as Supernatural wants to examine the "monsters are people too!" trope, the show has a frustrating history of randomly denying personhood to monsters for no readily apparent reason (compare Lucky the skinwalker's treatment in S06 to how Amy was treated – the former was let go without even having to promise he wouldn't kill more people, while a huge fuss was kicked up about letting Amy live when she killed for much less petty reasons), and the cognitive dissonance grates. The title "He Who Fights Monsters" is the name of a trope where the hero becomes just as monstrous as the enemies he fights, a theme that I felt tied in well overall.
> 
> Anyway, I hope this was somewhat believable! I have an enormous soft spot for crack pairings and this one is pretty danged cracky. Canonically speaking, it would take waaaay longer than what I've written here for these two to shack up, but then fanfiction is all about the instant gratification. :D


End file.
